Powerbook acting strangely....help!

Hello!
My Powerbook g4 17 has been acting strangely the past two days. It all started when I had both Safari and iPhoto open. I got the Beach ball of death and my computer froze (I had been getting the SBBOD on occasion, but never had it caused a full blown freeze before). I tried all the force quit commands and finally I had to manually shut it down. It had trouble restarting, it would chime but then it wouldn't get past the first screen with the grey apple symbol. I turned it off and let it "rest" overnight. The next day it turned on fine, but the computer's "thinking" noises sound different. More of a buzz now than the usual clicking and whirring noises. The power button also makes a strange "BEEEEOOOOooooop" noise when I turn it off, which is also new.
To make a long story short, I tried to run disc utility and it froze on me again when it finished. I had to hard start it (and again, and again, and again...)and it won't go past the first screen UNLESS I let it sit turned off for at least 5 minutes. Once I do manage to get it turned on, it acts fine for maybe a half and hour or so until it slows down (thinking gets labored) and freezes on me again.
Any ideas on what may be going on? I'm worried it's something really bad.....

Thank you BGreg.
I have 27GB free out of my 80GB drive, so no issue there...
I tried to do the boot up with the OS X install cd witn no luck. I was on the phone with AppleCare last night for over an hour and after trying many different things, it seems I am going to have to mail it in for repairs.
Here I was hoping it'd be something simple.
And of course, I backed up as much as I could. I'm crossing my fingers!

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